Canaries in a Coal Mine - Transom Prep 3

Another PocketShip builder (Jon) talks about his metaphorical canary to gauge how much time's been spent building versus other hobbies. Miners took canaries into the shafts with them to test for gas. (Some of them got pick axes, too, but they were terrible workers.)

Apparently, canaries are much more susceptible to gas than humans are, so if the bird keeled over, it was time to head to the surface. In Jon's case, it was violin proficiency. In my case, it's bagpipe practice. For all I know, Jon's bird is still alive. Mine has long since crumbled into a pile of feathers and mulch.

I haven't picked up the pipes in about 2 months, favoring boatbuilding over most other winter hobbies. I've been forced (in a good way) to pull out the practice chanter and work on some St. Patrick's tunes. I don't do the parades and bars anymore, but I do work with a Dropkick Murphy cover band that plays tunes like An Irish Pub Song, Shipping Up to Boston, and a not-your-grandmother's Amazing Grace.

That means PocketShip progress has been slow. Some days, it's walking into the garage, staring at the transom, and walking back out. Other days, like yesterday, it was cutting a 9" cleat and letting it sit with some epoxy on it. Speaking of epoxy, one task I had to do before anything else was replacing the 5 gallon resin jug. There was still some left in the old jug, so I poured the remnants into the new one. If progress can be measured by material use, then there's been some progress. Granted, half the jug wound up on the shop floor, or scraped off the tiller, or in various globs around the house, but some of it actually made it onto the boat. There's a lot left in the build, but I should have enough to finish.

New resin jug. Hard to believe.

Some little things to address included the final board for the sole. I'd stripped too much wood from the cleat so had to refill it with epoxy and drill the board back in. The sole is officially planked and finished. I'll need to do some touch up work just before launch (some minor sanding and varnish) but that'll wait until much later.

Had to refill holes to redo the last plank.

The sole is done!

Finishing the sole was a bit anti-climatic. From hauling the padauk home to the final plank installed, it was about 10 months. From ripping the first plank, about 6 months. I really like the way it came out - it's stunning, actually - and I'm surprised this is a product of my handiwork. But it was a long way to get here with the accent boards, lift out design, and angles. This was one of those high effort, high reward things, like college, but I wouldn't want to go back. I'm ready to move on.

I also finished up the port speaker box. Keen readers will recall I dry fit these last time. They're now installed with epoxy and drywall screws. It's flush all around and watertight. The backer was installed just outboard of the top cleat that forms the frame for the laz hatch. That's important for how the laz floor is going to work. A very small hole is visible in the upper right where the wires will power the speakers. I'll also install a bus bar at the upper right corner of the backing to carry the port side wires under the footrest and to the starboard side, where it will carry forward to the battery. This is needed because I didn't think ahead enough to leave a few more feet of wire.

I'm slightly concerned about how the current will affect the speaker; will I get a buzz? Not sure, but not really many options right now.

Screwed and glued and watertight port side speaker box. Will also be the bus bar surface.

View from the cabin. The angle of the screw holes annoys me even in this photo.

View from the top. You can see the extra blocking added for the speaker depth. There's about 1/2" clearance now.

Starboard always gets the dregs, and here again is no exception. I epoxy'd the last cleat in place and will wait for that to cure before installing the backing later this afternoon. This one was a little finicky as the bottom cleat (for the laz floor) was a slightly different size than the others, so had to taper the speaker box cleat. Came out fine, just a little work to get right. It gave me an excuse to try the tapering jig, which will be important when I do the scarfs for the rubrails. Man! There's a lot to this boat.

Starboard speaker box lagging behind.

I worked with the footwell sort of dry fit. This was to ensure I wasn't off on the dimensions and to understand how to run the wires.

Footwell dry fit. Nice clean lines. This is one pretty boat.

A couple things to note. There will be flotation under the floorboard, and indeed under the laz floors, too. Some of that space under the floorboard is taken up by the bilge pump and the wiring conduits, so I'll need a little extra flotation to make up for the cubic foot or so I'll lose for those things. Given I'll have both port and aft side electrical needs, I need to be sure I can run wires back and forth under this without causing a mess. I also need to be sure I have access to everything. That means I won't have 100% coverage on the laz floor but really just the area between the inboard speaker box edge and the footwell itself. I'll have a short baffle (for lack of a better word) that will sit vertically between the footwell side and the hull. It's a good compromise, I think. But we'll see how it works in practice. Pictures later will help anyone who's confused, including me.

A side project I've been working on is a redo of the dashboard. With a little time and energy, I recut the pattern and added some extra flair to the border. I don't think it'll be installed until I turn the boat back over, but at least it'll be ready when that time comes. Now, back to the pipes!

Speakers 2 - Aft Speaker Boxes

Tonight was one of those nights when not a lot went right. I wanted to make some progress on the transom area so that I can finally drop the cockpit decking down, but it's slow going. I started out with some wiring. All the wires back there except the horn/bilge now have terminals. Everything's official - Ancor marine wire with heat shrink tubing.

Rear wiring done except for the bus bars and bilge pump.

That left a pretty hefty check list, still:

• Build speaker boxes
• Install bilge pump (haven't gotten it yet)
• Run wiring and bus bars
• Build laz "floors"
• Prep and paint

As a work colleague would say, the long pole in the tent is the speaker box build. I started by applying a nice layer of epoxy on the circle cut outs that house the speakers. That went ok, and I wiped up any runners before it would affect either the paint or the transom. But even then, I realized I only had one latex glove left so had to be really careful not to muck up my exposed fingers. A quick run to the Big Box Store solved that. (I checked on my lumber order while there. It's still a week away.)

I then measured and cut the cleats that would form the frame of the speaker box. The speakers I have are low profile, but they still jut in about 1 1/2". Allowing another 1/2" for the sound and fury, I'm looking at a 1 3/4" frame with 1/4" backer. The problem is in my rush to put down the laz cleats for the floors some weeks ago, I grabbed whatever I had available. That meant the bottom cleats are a different size than the top cleats. Oops...

The speaker cleats started life as a block of pine lying around the shop. Actually, they started life as a pine tree, but who cares about that.

Block o' pine. Not sure where this came from.

Block o' pine ready for duty.

I assured a dry fit then epoxy'd them up.

Fits pretty good.

Epoxy'd and cleated. This will be watertight.

I drilled a hole in the inboard cleat to run the speaker wire out. This is now filled with epoxy but I'll drill a smaller hole. This is of course to prevent seepage back here. I'm not real happy with the close ups of epoxy runs under the cleats, but not much I can do (or more importantly, want to do) about it. This is the sealed up, watertight, non-visible area of the transom. I would've liked to be more conscientious here, but wasn't.

Something to note is that the manual asks to put the cleats that ride on BH 8 facing inside the cabin. If I did that, I'd have internal speaker boxes and given much more attention to the squeezeout. In any case, I think it's much better to face these inside the laz vs. inside the cabin.

Well, watertight except for the hole I've drilled for the speaker wire. But if water gets up that high, seriously...

I then found some marine ply scrap and cut the backer. I dry fit this and it looks good. But I want to epoxy this on both sides before installing it. This will be glued and screwed to become a permanent part of the build tomorrow. Some folks wondered how I'd make aft speakers watertight. Well, here it is.

Backer fitted. There will still be plenty of room in the laz for assorted junk.

Some fancy jiggering got the port box done and acceptable, but the starboard side is a bit off. I got tired of trying to fit cleats so I quit for the night. One of these days, both sides will be even.

Playing with Half a Foredeck

The scene through my upstairs window was chilly, but captivating at the same time. There's a certain wonderful quality of light from the low afternoon sun. Filter that light through the fractals of ice as it crawls on the window pane, and it's almost worth staying here year round.

As my wonderlust continued, I found this scene on the Wooden Boat facebook page: a literal "boat house" somewhere in Scotland.

And then of course I left these daydreams behind to mix epoxy and 'glass the centerboard in the basement shop. I had a lot of remnants of 'glass from various cuttings through the summer. It didn't make sense to roll out a full sheet for the centerboard when I could use a few sheets that would be perfectly acceptable. In some way, this would actually be stronger than just one sheet as the overlaps will provide extra support.

Laid out the 'glass.

I found a leftover wider piece and used that for the bottom half, then cut a smaller strip for the top half from the big roll. Both ends were in good shape, removing the need to feather and taper where they met. In other words, I could do this at one time and not have to wait for the bottom half to cure in order to clean up the top.

Half the centerboard 'glassed. This is just the first weave layer of epoxy.

I also cut a couple darts here and there around the curve, especially by the corner. I imagine, of the whole centerboard, this corner will get beat up the most. It's unfortunate it's also one of the more difficult areas to lay 'glass.

Close up of trailing edge. Earlier posts showed voids here and there, now fixed. Some darts helped the bends.

On the straight leading edge, I wrapped about 3" under and applied epoxy there. It required a little bit of technique as I was working effectively upside down, but it came out really nice. The hours spent shaping and sanding were worth it as the 'glass went on like a charm. Granted, I'm better at this than I was a few months ago, but mostly, I learned that proper prep can make or break a good layout.

View of the "underside." This is where about 2" wraps over the leading edge and up against the other side. I was worried I'd get a lot of bubbles or whatnot here, but it went on great.

A few hours later, I was on a quest for more offcuts as I went for the flip. The only downside to the offcut method is that the overlapping 'glass takes up more epoxy than a single layer. That might seem intuitive, but hey, I never said this would be a deep blog. I trimmed back the overlap and various odd angles to that there was about 3 inches at most of double fiberglass.

Found more offcuts. This is a set of 4 arranged in a compelling pattern.

Wetting down the 'glass.

Down the length - this is where the table saw ate my centerboard, 'glassed over. All good now.

I wrapped another 3" around the other as I did the other side, thereby having 2 layers of fiberglass on the trailing edge. When all of that cures, I'll add a strip of 9 oz 'glass here, too. Bring on the logs!

Underside, 2nd layer of 'glass.

I'll be painting my centerboard and would like to add a design, like a big eye ball on each side to make it look to sea critters like a big fish; maybe then they'll leave me alone. With my luck, they'll try to mate with me. I thought about (albeit too late) epoxy'ing some design in there, like they do with Kaholo stand up paddle boards. But alas, eyeballs will have to do.

Beautiful stand up paddle board built by Boat Building by the Bay.

I hate using up supplies on relatively short projects. The foam rollers are about 50 cents each; my gloves are 5 cents. Yes, I know. My Vetus portholes will be 900 times more expensive. But darn it, I'm gonna save those 50 cents. So before I geared down, I looked around to see what else I could 'glass. The dogs were not immediately available, neither was the TV. The triangle-shaped piece that is the foredeck volunteered itself, so I propped it up on the would-be router table and set off to find more offcuts for the 'glassing.

Now, 'glassing the underside of the foredeck is not specifically called for in the manual, but it's recommended. This is an area that gets pounded by anchors, by people standing on it, sitting, whatever. Just a little extra piece of mind that takes just a little extra work. I'll be doing the same to the cockpit decks over the next couple weeks.

Same as before, I found some strips of scrap fiberglass (kept in good shape of course) and layered them on. I did the left (aft) half first and let that cure overnight because, unlike the scraps used for the centerboard, the edges weren't as good, and I needed to feather it down some. The aft half is actually visible in the cabin as it is the ceiling of the forward locker. I'll do at least a second layer tonight and be done playing with the half foredeck until it's time to sand.

Bow deck underside with fiberglass layers. Looks like a Christmas tree.

One sheet 'glassed.

Next day, did the others

With that curing, I started fitting the pieces for the cockpit locker dashboards. I plan to put speakers in there with a couple 12v outlets.

Fitting the locker speakers. They'll have to be trimmed back a bit but otherwise fit well.

Though I'm a few months off from making this a reality, the plan is to copy the "solid" seatback supports and install a second one just a couple inches aft of the structural one. This will reduce the space in the locker by a little bit; the upside is I'll have the cockpit as I want it without affecting the flotation. The wires will run down behind this wall into the laz area where the bus bars await, then forward to the battery. If I can only figure out where to install the VHF antenna that would end the planning phase of the electrical.

Note: The work represented here took place over 3 days, with lots of waiting for stuff to dry in between. Everything got 3 coats of epoxy and is now awaiting sanding.

The Tubes to Nowhere

The weather didn't hold up here as much as it held on, so there wasn't much in the way of epoxy and/or painting. While standing in the boat, my tools and equipment strewn about, I wondered aloud as to why I'm not farther along. I have the planks for the sole sitting in the kitchen, where they've been for a few days. I have unfinished touch up painting. I still don't have the dashboard cutout. And then I looked down and saw a mass of wires and understood. My obsession with the wiring scheme has easily cost me a month, maybe more, in the build. In the end, I'll get what I want, but at what price wires?

Here's what's going on back here:

1. Port/Starboard Locker LEDs (blue)
2. Port/Starboard Lazarette LEDs (blue)
3. Port/Starboard rear cabin lights (white - wires will run aft through the corner of bulkhead 7)
4. Stern light
5. GPS/Chartplotter
6. 4-12 volt 'cigarette lighters,' two on each side installed in the locker wall.
7. Port/Starboard cabin speakers
8. Port/Starboard locker speakers
9. RAM3 VHF microphone
10. Horn button & wiring (controlled from cockpit with horn in dorade box)

The good news is I managed to pull the wires all the way through the conduit using a plumber's snake. Was surprisingly easy once I found the right tool to do that. I'll have a couple dual bus bars back there (one for electronics, the other for lights) and another for the speakers.

The wiring scheme from the transom back.

The conduit threw up on my rug.

Conduit and wires running into the front storage locker.

I've been to the Big Box store easily 6 times in the last few days trying to find the perfect way to ensure that I can run the wires aft-forward without risk of swamping the boat. That's because anything that comes through bulkhead 8 must be watertight, but I keep having to buy things to test and fit. The tubes are a prime example. Since the through-hulls are 1/4", the tubes have to be 1/4" inside diameter. The larger conduit is 7/8" inside diameter, so the outside diameter of such tubes have to be no more than that if I want them to fit snugly. Unfortunately, 3/4" ID / 7/8" OD doesn't exist. I tried shaving down a bit of it and jamming it into the conduit but it doesn't work. That means I'll have to go the other way: get a larger tube to stick the conduit and smaller tube in to ensure it's watertight and secure. That means another $15 and yet another trip to the Big Box store. Oh, well.

Two sets of speaker wires, two sets of pos/neg, and a thin wire for the horn. Yes, a horn. The horn will be in the dorade box.

Frustrated, I gave up trying to finalize the wires (and therefore, permanently installing the sole) until I can get the last little bit of tubing to do this. It took a bit to get up the courage, but I made the leap and installed bulkhead 8 speakers. Now, I posted a question about this on the PocketShip forums and to a man, everyone said it was a bad idea, mostly because of stuff getting in the way of a proper sound, and two, because people aren't sure how to make it watertight. The watertight business is easy. The speakers are low profile, only jutting 1 1/2" inches, which means together with the thickness of bulkhead 8, it's a simple matter of building a small speaker box into the lazarette area.

As luck would have it, the portlight/deadlight was the same size as the speaker. It served as a good template to mark the circle to cut, and then follow with a jigsaw. I wasn't too worried about precision here as long as the cabin view was flush and neat. I'd take care of any issues with the jigsaw with some epoxy, what else.

Speakers installed. I was deciding between two designs. The caterpillar on the right is a LED strip that will run under the cleat. Wires will run aft into the laz and then the hole will be sealed.

From behind. I'll close this off with a watertight box spanning the cleats. The wires will run out a small hole drilled near the top and sealed with silicon.

As for blocking the speakers with dunnage (sailor speak for assorted sailing crap stored in the cabin) I suppose that's possible, even likely. PocketShip #1 has some neat speakers mounted on bulkhead 7 that jut a bit into the cabin. They're of course perfectly placed and aren't blocked by anything. But when I was on PS #1 over the summer and laid down, I came really close to kicking the speakers. That would've been bad, and made me think there must be a better place to put them. Structurally, bulkhead 8 bears weight so removing a bit of it is a risk. With the boxes epoxy'd in back, I think it'll replace most of the structure from the cut out. I'm not sure if I want to continue the massacre of bulkhead 8 and install deck plates. It'd be nice to install them so I have access to the laz without exiting the cabin, but I'm not sure I want to take down bulkhead 8 anymore than I have already.  Ahh... who am I kidding...

Odds and End(ings) - Centerboard sheave and inspection ports

The third trip to the Big Box store finally yielded the prize. It was a quest like finding the rare white rhino: a bolt that would fit the sheave pendant that also came with a fitted acorn nut. And of course, stainless steel they must be. Zinc, chrome, and chrome plated weren't going to work. It was a quest I've been on for the better part of two months. Finally, the quest came to an end and I'm the proud owner of an installed sheave pendant!

View of pendant sheave installed with new hole, too. Too cold to epoxy this yet.

Pretty much all of Big Box's nut sizes. Gave up trying to be precise, so I bought.. a few.

Deck plate and pendant installed. The white-white contrasts nicely with the Choice Cream.

Nice little acorn nut. This is sealed in silicon.

Of course, nothing's quite that easy. I began the evening "simply" going to install the deck plates on either side of the centerboard trunk, the deck plates that are used to push down the centerboard in case it gets jammed, which kinda happens a lot, and unfortunately, sometimes happens somewhat permanently. I knew I'd have to trim the top part as the deck plate bumps up against the cleat. I didn't know I'd have trim the entire circumference around as it protruded into the centerboard trunk itself a good 1/4". With both of them installed, I'd lose 1/2" of clearance for the centerboard. Sure enough, when I tested the opening with the 2/3 done centerboard, it wouldn't fit.

Halfway through sanding this down. It stuck out much more at first. The writing is "CTBD Port" for "centerboard trunk port side" -- seems like ages ago that I put this on!

For the protrusion, I debated looking for "low profile" deck plates but resigned myself to just sanding the darn things down, and that I did. I turned my random orbital into a stationary sander. Three discs of 60 grit later, 12 #8 1/2" stainless screws, and a few dabs of silicon, and I've got pretty good fitting deck plates. But that wasn't until I also had to sand out the opening itself as the 6" deck plates seemed to be 6 1/8". That was frustrating. Some of that is due to the epoxy and paint that gummed it up a bit, but I swear the holes in the centerboard trunk were a little small. I left these a little proud (in other words, still protruding maybe 1/16" into the centerboard trunk) but there should be plenty of clearance now for the centerboard itself.

Bulkhead 7 doubles as a workbench to clamp the sander.

It's nice getting stuff out of boxes and onto the boat. I special ordered the sheave from the Marine store back in April and bought the deck plates in the summer. You can see where I thought I'd be in the build. It's a minor miracle I didn't lose them with all the box moving I've done over the last couple months, but there they are, installed on my boat. I have to repaint some spots where I scuffed the finish but it was worth it.

I also drilled out the hole where the pendant enters the footwell. I had to buy a 5/8" drill bit for this and frankly overpaid for the privilege, but I must say the Irwin bit I got is a very, very sweet bit. Highly recommended as it chomped through the trunk blocking straight and true. It's pretty cool to see this little feat of engineering come together: the pendant runs from a cleat on the footwell, into this hole, across the pendant sheave, and through a hole in the centerboard to raise and lower it. Simple but effective. Like most holes on the boat, this will be completely filled with epoxy, then redrilled slightly smaller so the wood is never exposed to water. The trick here is to ensure that the second drilling is exactly in line with the first. It does no good if the angles are off and part of the wood is protected and part of it isn't.

View down the hole to the pendant sheave.

Finally, the speaker boxes are done. I should say speaker corners. I decided against boxes because I didn't want this sticking too far into the cabin, plus wanted to direct the sound to meet in the middle. I had to return the original 6.5" Boss Marine speakers for a set of 6.5" Pyles. The Pyles were a little more money but were "low profile" with a 2.5" mounting depth. The Boss speakers wouldn't fit into the corners I created for them, but the Pyle ones do. They're grey, not white, but it won't be too bad. They supposedly sound better than the Boss ones but I haven't heard them so the jury's out on that.

View of speaker 'boxes' from above.

I've decided to let go of my wiring obsession in the forward locker. Yes, I could build runners and hide them all but there are going to be a lot of wires back here and to hide them would just not be efficient. Perhaps some day when all is said and done and I have free time (ha!) I'll rework the wiring, but I'm comfortable with that decision. And really, unless someone sticks his head through bulkhead 2 and strains, it's really hard to see anything back there, anyway.

I'm pleased with the way this section turned out, but I'm going to wait until I get a break in the weather (looks like tomorrow might be 55 degrees) to do a final pass with some thickened epoxy to shape the fillets. It's totally about aesthetics and I'm in no rush to get these done until I like the way they look. Only then will I paint this part, which might be next year.

One thing I noticed while working with my cell phone running Pandora is how the forward locker seems to amplify sound. The phone was sitting on the xylophone/battery box holder, maybe 3/4 volume, and it was so loud I had to turn it down. Granted, I'm in an enclosed space in my garage, but just a few feet away sit two 200 watt marine speakers coupled with another set of 100 watters that will go in the rear of the boat. That boat's gonna be jumpin'.